so who are they? the artists that you have been consistently coming back to. the ones that still sound as fresh 20, 30, 40 years later, as when you first heard them...

"there's a comfort in the teaching of the old familiar songs, & a sorrow in repeating all the old familiar wrongs"janis ian - light a light

for me it's kind of the standard ones, but i have no idea why so many names start with the letter "j"... - joan baez: by no means a great musician, or songwriter. huge influence on me since i first heard "from every stage"

- joni mitchell: never got her until "shadows & light", now i love most of what she did, with a couple of exceptions which i just pretend don't exist ("chalk mark in a rain storm", "shine"). still the most insightful songwriter, or the one which most strikes a chord with me..

- janis joplin: "take another little piece of my heart". don't think i need to say more than that...

- jimi hendrix: so much more than just a flashy guitarist

- janis ian: in terms of lyrics, she can be just as brilliant as joni. just not as adventurous in terms of the music.

- emmylou harris: hooked since i first heard luxury liner

- paul simon: probably the artists who first helped me get the whole singer / songwriter concept (after he ditched the deadweight known as art garfunkel )

- ian drury: clever, funny, incisive. some dreary pop, some blinding brilliance in his less well known songs

- giselle hawkins: only recorded one demo ep. maybe i'm biased because i met her, and we got along quite well, but i rate her as one of my all time favourites. terrific guitarist, great voice, great songwriting & passion.

- michelle shocked: passion & honesty, with her heart on her sleeve, has done & said some really dumb things. and some brilliant, sensitive & passionate things... and she closed off her 3 night run at grahamstown with "ballad of penny evans" because i asked for it. (i still have the letter from her lawyers demanding that i cease & desist circulation of unofficial recordings of her live shows & radio appearances )

Lindsey Buckingham. Incredibly inventive musician, terrific guitarist and songwriter (albeit somewhat cryptic at times). I've been hooked from the moment he first made an appearance in Fleetwood Mac...who would've amounted to nothing post Peter Green era without Lindsey's creative genius.

Fleetwood Mac (Peter Green & Buckingham/Nicks era). FM have consistently delivered great songwriting, much of it from the tortured soul of Peter Green culminating in his breakdown and abandonment of music to Lindsey, Stevie and Christine's reflections on life, relationships, family, loss and the whole catastrophe.

John Mellencamp. Whilst everyone was going nuts for Springsteen I really got to know Mellencamp's music well. Jack and Diane was the first track I'd heard which got me looking into his discography. There are some real gems scattered across all his albums and as he's grown older so his songwriting has reflected that and since my early teens I've often found tracks I can fully relate to. Look up: Taxi Dancer, Jackie Brown, Between a Laugh and a Tear, Do You Think That's Fair, What if I Came Knocking, Hey Goodness.

Thin Lizzy. I've always liked all forms of guitar and this band produced some of the best rock guitar harmonies I've heard. I'm still in awe listening to some of their work. Attending a Thin Lizzy concert during their prime must've been mind blowing. Not sure I'd have made it out alive. Phil Lynott passed way too young and we've missed out on a lot of magic as a result.

Bob Seger: Great musicianship and some real songwriting gems in his canon.

Paul Simon Great songwriter, and yes, better without Art.

Billy Joel: He's all over the show, but man he's penned some real gems that I'll never grow tired of. Seek: Always a Woman to Me; New York State of Mind

Elton John: Before he became the poster child for pop hits he and Taupin penned and performed some great songs. Tiny Dancer comes to mind.

Rod Stewart: Like Billy Joel, he's all over the show, but has some real gems in his canon. Seek out: I Don't Want to Talk About It; The Killing of Georgie, Pts. 1 & 2; his cut of Downtown Train; Reason to Believe

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Audiophile: There is almost no other group that prides themselves more on wasting good money on utterly worthless ****, and then trying to furiously blow smoke up their own ass to justify it.

Pere Ubu - First heard them when 'The Tenement Year' came out in the eighties, delved further into their past and followed their later work. Still go back to most of the albums (maybe not 'Song of the Bailing Man' which was a low point). David Thomas is a very interesting lyricist and performer. Seeing them a few years back in Budapest playing their album of the play of their name (Ubu Roi) it was difficult to work out whether he was swearing out the band in character or in reality. Bloody brilliant show.

Can - got into them in the eighties again (but through their 'Tago Mago' album) have the classics and listen to them regularly. The musical brilliance is matched by the experimentation and the sheer madness that is either singer (Damo Suzuki probably more bizarre than Malcolm Mooney).

Various others but lets here some more

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John Mellencamp. Whilst everyone was going nuts for Springsteen I really got to know Mellencamp's music well. Jack and Diane was the first track I'd heard which got me looking into his discography. There are some real gems scattered across all his albums and as he's grown older so his songwriting has reflected that and since my early teens I've often found tracks I can fully relate to. Look up: Taxi Dancer, Jackie Brown, Between a Laugh and a Tear, Do You Think That's Fair, What if I Came Knocking, Hey Goodness.

i first got to know "hurt so good"didn't influence me to s&m, but have also been listening to him consistently.probably listen to his debut & "human wheels" most regularly.some great songwriting.

Not necessarily a good influence. But i was going the way i was going anyway, so it was just informative. Along with everything else.

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4. Gary Moore - A better Blues guitarist than him? I'm sure there is furious debate about that, but not in my mind.

Jimmy Page. But he was much more than a blues guitarist, the English blues guitarists. He took the blues background, the Yardbirds period, and created Led Zeppelin. With John Paul Jones. Of course, like you say, 4...great, top musicians. The drummer also unique. ja so i wouldn't argue it. After Led Zeppelin II, he'd moved away from the blues thing, anyway.

The problem of 'influence' is that all manner of artists have influenced me in many ways, the DIY/indie movement that showed that if you wanted to, you could be in a band and release records that gave people a wider variety than could be found in HMV, Michael Franti (Beatnigs/Disposable Heroes/Spearhead) who was the first hip-hop artist I met who took time to thank us as crew, advised a friend on improving his rhymes and was genuinely a good chap. Swans who wowed me with the sheer transcendent power of ear bleedingly loud live music (and whose albums I still listen to regularly), Palace who got me listening to country tinged blues again. The Cure, Joy Division and The Smiths who as a depressed teenager kept me going through lyrics which made me realise that as fed up as I was, it was better than I felt in reality and life could get better. Pixies, Throwing Muses, Nirvana, NoMeansNo, Mudhoney, Tad, Pavement, Alice Donut, Ministry, NIN, Fugazi, Skinny Puppy,Skatenigs and many more late eighties/early nineties bands that I headbanged away to, moshed, stage dived and found a community of fellow fans etc etc.

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Are you waiting for loneliness to paralyse? Are you waiting for sister midnight to anaesthetise?